The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.

In the Wall Street Journal, Ayaan Hirsi Ali demands a hard look at the connection between violence done in the name of Islam and moderates' defenses of "real Islam":

The question requiring an answer at this moment in history is clear: Which group of leaders really speaks for Islam? The officially approved spokesmen for the "Muslim community"? Or the manic street preachers of political Islam, who indoctrinate, encourage and train the killers—and then bless their bloodshed? . . . It is time [moderate leaders] came up with more credible talking points. Their communities have a serious problem.

The LA Times wants religious freedom to be a factor in the U.S.'s international relations...

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.

CFI chief Ron Lindsay and Hemant Mehta do a HuffPost Live panel on the (non)utility of prayer for folks in desperate need. (Hemant adds, "Go, Ron Lindsay, for remaining calm the whole time while I was about ready to flip over my laptop.")

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.

The anti-blasphemy machine rolls on: Turkish writer Sevan Nişanyan is sentenced to 58 weeks in prison for “insulting the religious beliefs held by a section of the society.”

GOP Lt. Governor nominee E.W. Jackson of Virginia (Democrats are a "coalition of the godless") says that anyone who criticizes his hard-right positions "is attacking every church-going person, every family that’s living a traditional family life, everybody who believes that we all deserve the right to live." Chaser:

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.

Obviously, most Americans' hearts and minds are concentrated on the victims of the tornadoes in Oklahoma and across the Midwest. We'll have a formal statement soon, and in the mean time please consider donating to help those affected.

Wowie-wow-wow-WOW. The already-loathsome Daily Caller outdoes itself by harrassing and insulting one of our own. Read about the saga of SCA's Lauren Anderson Youngblood and the "Dick pic" email from Christopher Bedford. You rock on, Lauren. <communications directors' secret high-five-handshake>

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.

The conference was great. It had a high bar to meet with last year's huge success, but it was easily cleared. Talk to talk, panel to panel, and the amazing freaking voice of Shelley Segal, it was a real and substantive pleasure to be at Women in Secularism 2.

We, of course, had our controversies. CFI chief Ron Lindsay has posted the prepared text of his opening remarks that caused an enormous amount of debate and very strong feelings, reactions to which can be found all about the interwebs.

I know, many, many folks are itching for video of the conference talks. While you wait for us to crank up the movie machine, sate your desire with videos from last year's conference.

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.

Women in Secularism 2 kicks off today! To judge by the tweets of attendees, there is an enthusiasm for this conference that I've not seen for an event at least since the Reason Rally. And not for nothin', but the WiFi in the hotel lobby is great, and the hotel Starbucks employees are really nice, so things are already looking up. For live updates, images, and bad jokes, watch the Twitter hashtag #wiscfi (knowing that it will also have its share of detractors in the stream) and the official CFI Twitter account @center4inquiry...which is me!

Matthew Brown at Deseret News (who does a lot of great church-state coverage) looks at the "softening" of the White House faith-based initiative, as emphasis moves from money to the sharing of information and being generally helpful.

Lawrence Krauss joined CFI's Office of Public Policy in sending a letter to Rep. Lamar Smith, chair of the House Science Committee, asking him to scrap his ill-advised proposal to hamper NSF funding:

These requirements represent a serious misunderstanding of the nature of scientific inquiry and discovery and, if approved, would not facilitate, but instead obstruct productive scientific research.

Too many saints! Pope Francis dubs literally hundreds of new saints from the "Martyrs of Otranto" - Italian Catholics beheaded in 1480 for refusing to convert to Islam.

Ack! No wait! Too many popes!Francis, Ratzinger, and Egypt's Coptic Pope were all in the Vatican at once!

Last Friday, Ben Radford dished on the disaster that is fake-psychic Sylvia Browne on CKNW's Simi Sara Show (scroll to the bottom for the "Hour 2" section) and KIRO's Seattle's Morning News (I can't find a link, but trust me, I heard it, he was on).

The trio spent about two hours inside the Oak Ridge facility in July, cutting through fences to reach a facility known as the “Fort Knox of uranium.” Once there, they painted slogans, chipped off a part of a wall with hammers and splattered human blood on the exterior.

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.

Stop whatever you're doing. Like, don't even read the Heresy right now. Because Point of Inquiry has a special video edition this week with both hosts (swoon!) and! And! Guest Jared Diamond (double-swoon!), author of books like Guns, Germs, and Steel and The World Until Yesterday. Go now! Click! Watch!

Oh, Sylvia Browne. Being a fake psychic is not paying off like it used to. After determining with her magical mind powers that kidnap victim Amanda Berry was dead, Browne isn't talking to anyone about how her super-magic-brain could have been so entirely, ridiculously, and thankfully wrong.

PZ Myers declares his disaffiliation from the skeptic movement (so he is now only an atheist, and not what I call a "skepto-atheist"). Massimo Pigliucci will not miss him, but sees trouble within the movement:

I think the primary problem with the skeptic movement — of which I am and remain a proud member — is that too many people, both among the “leaders” and the rank-and-file, seem to be in it for the sheer pleasure of calling others out as idiots.

On the one hand it's clear from our constitution the founders wanted the government to stay outside of church internal affairs. We don't want the government deciding who should be a bishop, don't want the government deciding religious dogma, etc. I definitely agree with that position...

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.

I was very proud to work under the skeptical-yet-welcoming glow of the Big Blue Meatball of CFI yesterday, as we and our allies held protests in cities around the world to raise awareness of, and demand action in response to, the persecution of atheist bloggers and other dissidents in Bangladesh. Things didn't turn out as we had hoped a couple of weeks ago, as a tragic building collapse in Bangladesh killed hundreds, and as a result, some groups went ahead with protests on the country's day of mourning, and others, including ours, postponed. So things were more thinly spread, but as a result, we got days and days of secular activists talking, tweeting, posting, and demonstrating against crackdowns on free expression. So while things did get a little confusing, and a little jumbled, what we did still mattered, and continues to matter. Thank you, sincerely, to everyone who made an effort.

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.

It's the National Day of Reason, and today, secularists and our allies around the globe will tell Bangladesh and the world that the persecution of atheists and dissenters will not be tolerated, with protests planned in DC, Ottawa, Calgary, Toronto, Dhaka, and London. At Friendly Atheist, I make the case for taking this seriously, and forcing the world to care about this by the sheer strength of our message. If you're taking part or helping to promote the cause, tweet using the hashtag #DefendDissent.

We have a guest post at the CFI blog from freethought activist Dr. Avijit Roy of Bangladesh, who documents and opines on the swirl of activity and danger around this issue.

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.

Tomorrow, for real this time, CFI and other allies around the world will protest for free expression in Bangladesh. Here are the details, and don't forget when tweeting from or about protest events to include the hashtag #DefendDissent.

Big news! CFI announces its super-mega-ultra conference, combining the powers of humanism and skepticism into one! It's the CFI Summit, October 24-27 in Tacoma. Early information is here.

A bill in Michigan would exempt medical professionals from having to perform any function that conflicted with "moral" religious beliefs. CFI's Office of Public Policy wants Michiganders to tell their state senators to shut that whole thing down.